Saturday, February 26, 2011

Connecting the Dots

When we ask, "What is reality?" we are not so much looking for an ultimate definition as stating our willingness to be taken somewhere beyond the boundaries of our previous experiences.
Starhawk

Regarding Madame de Monsier’s and my recent comments about “fundamaterialists” and “fundamentalists, synchronistically enough, we just received an invitation from Dr. Eldon Taylor, who had August on his radio show, Provocative Enlightenment, at Hay House Radio last year. He’s asked us to submit some question for his upcoming guest, Neurologist Dr. Kevin Nelson, scheduled for March 15. Dr. Nelson, a near-death experience skeptic, claims that his new book – The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience– is the first comprehensive, empirically tested, and peer-reviewed explanation of the biology behind near-death experiences. Eldon tells us that by using brain scans, Dr. Nelson claims he has mapped the borderlands of consciousness concluding that spirituality is a part of our biology – nothing metaphysical going on, just strictly a biological phenomenon like any other. As such, he argues that spirituality and religion are not much more than throw backs to superstition.

Of course we'll be submitting a few Risen-inspired questions. But rather than reacting from an ego-mind stance of defense/attack/debate, right-or-wrong, we will strive to join with Dr. Nelson's own processes as a pioneer in exploring and uncovering only more mystery, which then reveals yet more mystery. This response is from Authentic Self. Melvin Morse, Tim and I (August) had a long conversation today about the many and various "skeptical neurobiologists" who, while presenting their assumed new-found wisdom as evidence that there is nothing after biological functions cease, i.e., "death", are actually to be supported in their endeavors, regardless of whether or not we might think they're wrong or misguided. Melvin is delighted that "someone is doing something." When seen from a greater perspective, we talked about how everyone involved is "connecting the dots" in some way, slowly revealing a picture that helps us understand a little bit more about our multiverses. With this in mind, Tim and I -- and Melvin Morse -- are interested in Dr. Nelson's dots, and how they look added to everyone else's dots. We're not interested in fruitless conflict or debate, for that is to let ego-minds engage in posturing simulated aspects of life. Rather, we wish to acknowledge that everyone is at their own dot, on their way to the next dot, all dots being valid. As we move through our uncoveries, our understanding changes, we change, validity changes, authenticity arises. Therefore, we bless everyone's endeavors toward . . . whatever It is we're being drawn toward.

In The Risen, we conceptualize connecting the dots as "weaving a tapestry":

"Keeping the Risen concept of weaving in mind, what we have before us, and are integrated in, is a Supreme Tapestry. There appears to be a Very Grand Design which we all follow, either in awareness or not, co-creatively or not— “creatively” again meaning “with fun.” The Grand Design is a work of perfection intermingled with imperfection, solutions with problems, brilliance with faux pas, and stillness within movement. As we weave we are free to make it up as we go along in any way that pleases us, while simultaneously staying within the Grand Design as imagined by Higher Imaginals, of whom we are an inseparable part. The Higher Imaginals are many things, but for our purposes here it suffices to say that they are unimaginably advanced, evolved individuals—or Most High Selves of Authenticity. Because It is infinite in concept and execution, it’s not possible to stray from the Great Design—so it’s not possible to be judged for appearing to do so, or even for wanting to.

"Although provocative in an illustrative way, the idea of a tapestry is a limiting concept and can be misleading. An earthly tapestry is a two-dimensional representational projection onto a three-dimensional object, used to portray three- and four-dimensional worlds—the fourth dimension being time. With the mind’s eye, it is possible to expand this concept by seeing a tapestry as woven not in a flattened manner, but as interwoven from all directions and by all beings, simultaneously. Picture this happening as guided by some kind of Great Designer who is presently unknown to us from within our limited dimensional awareness. Proceed further by seeing the interweaving occurring within different kinds of time, which gives rise to movement, which is change. We begin to comprehend the idea of a living work of art, which is Life as we know it, and as we don’t know it. Lastly, imagine that we are each a Great-Designer-In-Progress.

"Our individual lives are collectively woven into Living, as imagined by Higher Imaginals, and by the greater world-spheres of individuals with whom some of us may identify as our Higher or Authentic Self, Higher Power, a Creator Deity, the Universe, God, and so on. In turn, their world-spheres are simultaneously interwoven into greater, expanded experiences of Living by yet greater awarenesses, forever without end. Or as Tim likes to say, infinooty." (pp. 119-120).

For those interested in "spiritual neuroscience", see Dr. Morse's recently uploaded video.

As an aside, August was scheduled for a second show with Dr. Taylor this January, but it was canceled due to scheduling issues. If you would like to listen to the archive of that show, go here. If you would like to let Dr. Taylor know that you would like him to have August return for another show in the near future, feel free to contact him. Other archived radio shows with August can be found here.

"Creativity is the principle of novelty. Creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe disjunctively. The creative advance is the application of this ultimate principle of creativity to each novel situation which it originates. The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The novel entity is at once the togetherness of the 'many' which it finds and also it is one among the disjunctive ' many' which it leaves; it is a novel entity, disjunctively among the many entities which it synthesizes. The many become one, and are increased by one. In their natures, entities are disjunctively 'many' in process of passage into conjunctive unity... Thus the 'production of novel togetherness' is the ultimate notion embodied in the term concrescence. These ultimate notions of 'production of novelty' and 'concrete togetherness' are inexplicable either in terms of higher universals or in terms of the components participating in the concrescence. The analysis of the components abstracts from the concrescence. The sole appeal is to intuition.-- (Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 26)

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"Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustable well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."
-- Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

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"The instrument of thought, which has produced this world that does not work properly, is no longer valid. So perhaps this instrument of thought is worn out. Is there another instrument we can use?" -- Krishnamurti

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"...Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song, and the sun for his radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation on the excellence of the human mind. Nature is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless; merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly."
-- Alfred North Whitehead - English mathematician & philosopher (1861-1947)___________________________________

". . . keeping the Risen concept of weaving in mind, perhaps at this point it can be sensed that what we have before us, from which we are inseparable and as reflected in this book, is a Supreme Tapestry. There appears to be a Very Grand Design which we all follow, either in awareness
or not, co-creatively or not -- recalling that creative means fun. As we weave we are free to make it up as we go along in any way we please, simultaneously staying within the Grand Design as imagined by Higher Imaginals, of whom we an inseparable part. The Grand Design is a work of perfections intermingled with imperfections, solutions with mistakes, and stillness within movement. The Higher Imaginals are many things, but for our purposes here, it suffices to say that they are very advanced and evolved individuals, or Higher Selves."
(from The Risen: Dialogues of Love, Grief & Survival Beyond Death; Chapter 13, Mundus Imaginalis, p. 165).